


A Million Grains of Sand Will Wear Away Stone

by Sunnyskywalker



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Abolition, Community Organizing, Gen, Slavery, collective action, underground press
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 05:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14948330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnyskywalker/pseuds/Sunnyskywalker
Summary: Shmi's place is on Tatooine... because she has work to do.





	A Million Grains of Sand Will Wear Away Stone

Shmi took the basket from Jira, checking to make sure the cloth covering the pallies was secure. "These look fresh," she said, counting out several wupiupi into Jira's palm.

"Picked this morning," Jira replied. "I wouldn't send less to the Sandrunners."

"The children love fresh fruit."

In the Sandrunner home that evening, all nine children crowded around her, clapping their hands as Shmi uncovered the basket. She handed out the pallies, and they sat cross-legged on the floor, savoring the first fresh fruit they had had in a month. Their mother and half the adults in the neighborhood (as well as many of the children) squeezed themselves into the room wherever they could.

Beneath the pallies lay the encrypted datastick carrying the latest edition of _Sandstorm_ , the slaves' secret newsletter. Even Shmi didn't know where it was produced, though she was one of its main contributors.

"All right, who wants to read the first article to us?" she asked. "It's about how to start a community fund to save for our freedom together, and how to keep it secret."

"Me! Me!" cried Amina, at nine years old reminding Shmi painfully of Anakin. "Guess what, Auntie Shmi? I read a sign for an outworlder who didn't know Huttese last week and he gave me a whole peggat!"

"That's wonderful, Amina! Here, let us see how well you read."

They took turns reading, learning how to make a salve to sooth lightwhip burns, tips for keeping old generators running, how the new Mos Eisley chapter was faring, who had been sold and to whom.

Who had been freed.

Anakin had been their best hope for discovering how to disable their slave implants. Yet Shmi was glad he was gone, away from this life, though she knew it was wrong to rejoice that the burden had fallen to someone else's child.

She stayed up late into the night clearing old memory units she had scrounged, readying them for sale. She would rather be with Anakin—but her place was here. Even if she were free, she would stay on Tatooine to carry on with her work. Her part was small enough... but whenever she despaired, she repeated the _Sandstorm's_ motto to herself: "A grain of sand is small, but a million grains of sand will wear away stone."

She might not live see it, but someday, this evil would crumble.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Shmi wrote the motto. Her comment about not being able to stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting suggests that she has a poetic side.


End file.
